The sailor wrenched them to their feet, before pushing them stumbling and tripping back up on deck, where he plonked them down on their backsides again.

Ryn had got a brief glimpse of the surroundings they had landed in before he was made to sit down. They were in wide, grassy plains. And a way away, he thought he had glimpsed the wreckage of the Imperial airship lying crushed on the ground. Yes, that was the smoke from it still leaking into the air. They must all be dead. Nobody could have survived a crash like that. Including that officer who killed my mother… Ryn felt a little pang in his heart at that realisation. He was glad that General Vorr was dead, but he discovered that he had wanted to be the one to kill him himself...

He turned his attention to his more immediate surroundings.

This time what must be the whole crew of the ship stood around them in a semicircle, regarding them. They largely wore brown leather jackets, and baggy beige trousers, with black boots. Some had goggles on their heads. Most had sheathed cutlasses at their sides. Ryn spotted one or two blunderbusses too. Some were fat, some were thin, some tall, some short. Some had shaved heads, some had thick beards and braids. All were men. All looked at them with a kind of leering curiosity. Ryn reckoned there were about twenty of them, though he could only see the ones in front of him.

In the middle of them stood a young man with a circular leather patch strapped over one eye, brown hair tied back in a ponytail and his own deep-brown, long leather jacket with a ridiculously high collar. His unexposed eye glinted mischievously as he grinned with one side of his mouth, baring stained teeth. One of his teeth was gold.

When he spoke, Ryn recognised the voice of the young man as belonging to the ‘Cap’n’ from earlier.

“Who are you?” said the man, not bothering with any formalities. “Why were the Empire holding you captive?”

“We’re not telling you anything,” said Nuthea for the pair of them. “You’re just a filthy sky pirate!”

The captain’s boots resounded ominously over the deck. Out of the corner of his eye Ryn could see him crouch down in front of Nuthea.

“You’ve got a mouth on you, haven't’ you?”

Nuthea spat.

A moment’s pause, and Ryn heard the sound of leather glove against skin at the same time as he felt Nuthea’s head turn abruptly to one side.

To her credit, she barely moaned.

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she, lads? That’ll make it even more fun to break her!”

A deep, lecherous jeer went up from the crew.

“Leave her alone!” Ryn found himself yelling. “She hasn’t done anything to you!”

The pirate captain turned on Ryn. “Let’s see if you’re any more obliging, pup. Well? Who are you?”

Ryn didn’t see any point in lying about himself. If Nuthea wanted to keep her identity to herself, that was her business. “I’m nobody,” he said, more bitterly than he meant to. “A no one. I’m the only son of a landowning family in the town of Cleasor. You have no reason to hurt me--or her.”

“Well, Nobody of Cleasor, if you’re so unimportant, why did the Empire have you captive on one of their airships, hey? Answer me that!”

Again, Ryn didn’t see any point in lying to him about this either. “The Empire burned down my village. They killed everyone I know. They only spared me because--ow!”

Even though they were tied back to back together somehow Nuthea had been able to elbow him in the ribs. “Don’t!” She hissed.

“‘Don’t’ what?” said the captain.

Ryn was torn. He had no problem telling the sky pirate--but Nuthea wanted him to keep things a secret. Why?

The pirate captain drew one of the twin swords that hung on either side of his belt, producing a long, slightly curved blade. He grinned wickedly, then moved the point of it slowly in front of Ryn’s nose, making him flinch. Then he stepped around him and crouched down next to Nuthea, whose body suddenly went very stiff and still against his back.

“Tell me why, or I slit the lady’s throat.”

“Don’t tell him, Ryn!” Nuthea cried out at once. “He’s bluffing! He won’t do it! He could get far more money by ransoming me!”

Ryn thought that was a reckless thing to say. He didn’t think he could take the chance. He had already seen that the captain wasn’t afraid of causing pain.

“I have flame-projection powers!” Ryn blurted out. “I got them all of a sudden when the Empire attacked my village! I think that’s why they captured me! Nuthea thinks it’s something to do with these magical jewels! They captured her because she has lightning powers! Don’t you try anything with me, or I’ll scorch you with fire! I’ve done it before, and I can do it again!”

“By the One…” Nuthea said behind him with a sigh.

“You should be grateful…” Ryn couldn’t help himself whispering back, twisting his head to look behind him at the back of Nuthea’s golden-haired head. “I may have just saved your life…”

He looked up at the assembled sailors of the airship’s crew, standing around them.

A pause.

They burst out laughing. They threw their heads back and guffawed, held their bellies while they shook, and slapped each other on their backs. Some of them wiped tears of mirth from their eyes.

“Alright, alright, that’s enough, lads,” said the captain after a while. He stepped back round to Ryn’s side and held up his hand for silence, that devilish grin still stuck on his face, though Ryn wondered if he saw it crack just for a moment.

Eventually the laughter petered out.

“Fire and lightning powers?” said the Captain, mockery lacing every syllable. “Magical jewels? Do you expect me to swallow this, runt? If you’re going to play games with me, I will toy with you in turn!”

He bent down and moved his sword towards Ryn again, making him wince, but instead of skewering him, he reached past him and cut the cord tying Ryn and Nuthea together with a flick.

“On your feet!” said the captain. “Nobody mocks Captain Sagar Edbini! If you have ‘flame projection powers’, then show us, boy!”

Ryn stood up and rubbed the sides of his arms where the rope had bound him. He didn’t know why this guy, ‘Sagar’, was calling him a ‘boy’ when he didn’t look that old himself. He must be in about his early twenties. But he didn’t have time to ponder that now.

“Er, well,” said Ryn, “the thing is, it’s all quite new to me and I haven’t been able to summon the flames again since the incident at my village. I can’t produce them on demand. But I do really have them, I’m being honest. Also, I wouldn’t really want to hurt you, or any of your crew, unless I had to in self defence.”

It was stupid, but it was true.

The pirates laughed again, Captain Sagar too. They seemed unable to stop themselves.

A bolt of bright white lightning shot out from behind Ryn with and lanced into the rail of the ship with a flash and a crack. It left a charred, black mark where it hit, a thin ribbon of smoke hissing up from it.

The pirates stopped laughing.

“Tie her back up again, quick!” shouted Sagar, spittle flying from his mouth.

His crew appeared hesitant. Nobody moved to do so.

“Sir pirate,” said Nuthea, like she was beginning a stern lecture, “if you think for one moment that I am going to allow myself to be detained once more, least of all by a common skypirate such as yourself, you had best think again, or your life may be forfeit.” Ryn took a couple of steps backwards so that he was in line with her. “As you can see, I’m a little more experienced with my own powers of elemental projection than my...companion here.” Companion? He was her ‘companion’ all of a sudden? What did that mean? “If any of you lays so much as a finger on me again, I will turn my lightning on you. Is that quite clear?”

Sagar opened his mouth, then shut it again. His grin was replaced by a deep scowl. After a moment he said, “There’s a lot of us, lady, and only one of you. Do you think you can use your little trick on all of us at once?”

“Do you want to find out?” said Nuthea icily. Ryn guessed that she had not enjoyed being slapped.

“Tie them up again, boys!” yelled Sagar.

None of his crew moved.

He looked round at them.

One man, slightly taller and stockier than the rest, who Ryn recognised as the one who had tied them up originally, turned to Sagar and said “But Cap’n… you saw what she just did…”

“Yeah,” piped up another, “she must be some kinda witch or something...”

“Bad luck to kidnap a witch,” said another.

“’s’what I heard too.”

“And, Cap’n, you’re the one who just cut their bonds!”

“Yeah! If you want to tie them up again, you do it!”

The Captain’s face turned red as a rose. An angry rose. He jumped up and down on the spot like a petulant child.

“How dare you disobey me!” he yelled. “You just took down an Imperial ship under my command! So what if their lifeboat got away? The government of Imfis will pay us handsomely for this! You owe me! This is mutiny! Tie them up again right now or I’ll throw the lot of you overboard!”

“Well, you can’t throw us all overboard, captain.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be practical.”

“No more practical than all of us getting fried by lightning, to be honest.”

Lifeboat, Ryn thought, noticing something the Captain had said. So General Vorr might still be alive...

“It seems that we have reached something of an impasse, Captain,” said Nuthea, holding her head high. “Perhaps there is somewhere we could go to negotiate in private?”

“Ah, you hear that boys?” said the Captain quickly. S”he wants to negotiate in ‘private’.” His grin was back. What was with this guy? He had gone from throwing a tantrum to making lewd suggestions on the turn of a gold piece.

One of the pirates wolfwhistled.

Another brief fork of lightning flashed out and singed the deck just in front of the Captain’s foot.

“Alright, alright!” he said at once, leaping back a step. He clenched his jaw and said more quietly, through gritted teeth, “Stop doing that in front of my crew!” He returned his voice to its previous volume. “Fine. By mutual consent, I will speak to you privately inside my cabin. Come with me.” He spun on his heel and walked off. “The rest of you, get back to work!”

“Aye aye, captain!”

As the crew dispersed to attend to various duties about the ship, all of them still unashamedly staring watching Ryn and Nuthea, to a man, the two of them followed the Captain through a door in the ship’s forecastle.